Thoreau and Transcendentalism

Summary: Essay describes how Thoreau's work of "Walden" defines transcendentalism.

Thoreau's masterpiece work of writing, Walden, deeply portrays the notion of transcendentalism. Transcendentalism meaning a whole series of things: preeminence of nature, individualism, anti-materialism, nonconformity, intellectual independence, distrust of industrialism, action rather than thinking, and pragmatism Thoreau fully captures every part of transcendentalism through his actions. The most intriguing and eye-catching phrase Thoreau wrote was "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us" (878). The sentence, finding it most appealing, showed transcendentalism in its truest and most complete form.

Thoreau fully defines the meaning of transcendentalism in one sentence. Showing distrust to industrialism, Thoreau phrases that humans are more important than trains and we should not depend on them to do all the work, but we should make the trains depend on us in work. Thoreau establishes nature is more important than the railroad because he wants justifies that railroads are not a necessity in...